NASA researchers assemble “Rosettazyme” synthetic cellusome, potentially increasing cellulosic conversion efficiency

In California, researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center are reporting progress in the development of a synthetic cellusome, a self-assembling enzyme complex that is highly efficient in conversion of cellulose to sugars. The research team published “The Rosettazyme: A Synthetic Cellulosome” appearing in the July 30 issue of the Journal of Biotechnology, and said that  have used using protein parts from different microbe to produce multi-enzyme arrays on a protein scaffold of their own design.

“We succeeded in assembling a complex nano-scale structure,” said astrobiologist Jonathan Trent, “with diverse components that self-assembles and serves a useful purpose. It’s like a Swiss army knife of enzymes. This brings us a small step closer to functional nano-engineering.”

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